Business and book website: wordwhisperer.net
Author of SETTLE FOR BEST: SATISFY THE WINNER YOU WERE BORN TO BE; SERVAL SON: SPOTS & STRIPES FOREVER; DeFOREST KELLEY: A HARVEST OF MEMORIES; FLOATING AROUND HOLLYWOOD; LET NO DAY DAWN THAT THE ANIMALS CANNOT SHARE(order at Amazon); and THE ENDURING LEGACY OF DeFOREST KELLEY(order at http://store.payloadz.com/go?id=382995)

Sunday, December 15, 2013

Five Ways to Find a Great Freelance Copywriter

Professional copywriters
usually charge one to three dollars per word. Here’s how to get one for less—without
sacrificing quality.

Every
business and entrepreneur needs a professional writer now and then—for web
content, a brochure, content marketing articles, you name it. Unfortunately,
too many have fallen victim to tens of thousands of charlatans and wannabes who
have hung their shingles at scores of online freelance websites and proclaimed
themselves copywriting experts. (No certification or testing is required so anyone
can claim the title.)

1.IF you elect to use an online freelance website to look for copywriters (not
recommended!) be sure to carefully review each candidate’s profile page, client
history and feedback, certified test results, and portfolio. Most of the reputable copywriters
have fled online freelance websites (or are fleeing as fast as they can)
because the reputation of these sites has plummeted because of the overwhelming
numbers of impostors and their resulting unhappy customers; few professionals want to be
associated with them anymore. If you go this route, expect to spend hours (perhaps days) sorting through often-laughable
sub-standard profiles and portfolios in search of the remaining reputable
providers. Bottom line: Don’t settle for less than the
best. You’ll get what you pay for at these sites. Remember: you’ll need
a result that you can be proud of, not sub-standard copy fit only for lining
the bottom of a bird cage.

2.If you want a local provider, do a search on “your town + copywriter” and
see who pops up. Visit
their websites and look at their histories, portfolios and client
testimonials.(Note: no professional copywriter
tackles all niches; only hacks and wannabes do that—and they usually do it
poorly.) When you find ones that impress you, give them a call and make
arrangements to meet them to discuss your needs.

3.If the physical location of your copywriter isn’t an issue, run a search
on the kind of copywriter you’re seeking (SEO copywriter, real estate
copywriter, web content copywriter, content marketing copywriter, etc.) and
check out the credentials and client reviews of the ones you find. I highly recommend that you hire a
native professional copywriter from within your own country (wherever you are
in the world) when your target audience is also where you are, since he or she
will be well-versed in your nation’s idioms, culture and customs and won’t be
making major mistakes because of cultural and language issues. If your target
audience is in another country, hire a professional copywriter from the same
country your target audience is in unless the copywriter can show you copy he has
already written for that audience. Why? Because (for example) UK Englishmen
speak, spell, and write differently than do Americans, Australians and
Canadians; readers can be put off if they run across unfamiliar colloquialisms,
spellings or cultural references that they don’t hear at home.A metaphor like “You hit that one out of the
ball park!” resonates in the United States, where baseball is a national
pastime; it’ll just raise eyebrows (and sometimes hackles) in other places.

4.If you aren’t well-versed when it comes
to spelling, grammar and punctuation or if you confuse words when you’re writing
(there, their, they’re; its and it’s; accept, except; then and than, etc.) find
someone else to help you select your copywriter. It’s what you don’t know about
spelling, grammar, punctuation and other matters that can come back to bite you
professionally unless you find an ally to help you choose a copywriter.

5.Agree to pay a small fee to the
copywriter you’re considering hiring. Have them write a short one-page/250-word sample web page,
article or letter on your topic of choice (give them the source materials for
this piece); or (ideally) have them edit and enhance a substandard
one-page/250-word piece you already have on hand.Let them know you want the piece back in under
an hour (unless they’re absolutely swamped with deadlines). If they can produce
the piece to your satisfaction within this time frame, it’s likely you’re
dealing with a professional candidate.

6.

Using due diligence you can find an
exemplary freelance copywriter to do your bidding, one who won’t charge you an
arm and a leg for their services. But please note: if you aren’t able (or
willing) to pay at least $100/hour for the services of a professional
copywriter, wait until you are. No professional copywriter worth his or her
salt is going to write for you while going backward financially. Consider a U.S.
copywriter’s reality (which may mirror your own if you’re an American business
person or entrepreneur)…

Self-employed freelance copywriters
in the USA...

Ødon't get
paid vacations

Ødon't get
paid sick days

Ørarely get
bonuses for outstanding work

Ødon't have
employer-paid insurance plans

Ødon't
qualify for unemployment when work doesn’t materialize

Øhave to
take into account the time it requires to find and quote on projects

Øhave to
pay 100% of our Social Security, FICA, and other federally-mandated fees
instead of just a portion of them

Although
freelancers enjoy writing great copy...sadly....enjoyment doesn't pay the
mortgage.

#

Kristine M. Smith is a professional freelance
copywriter and the author of seven books. To discover the kinds of projects she
tackles and the ones she leaves to other professional writers, please email her
at kristinemsmith@msn.com.

Permission is hereby granted
to reprint this article as long as the copyright notice and this byline is
included wherever the reprint appears.

About Me

A
Pacific Northwest native, Kristine M. Smith transformed her copywriting
business from a struggling start-up to a going concern in near-record time.
Prior to launching her own copywriting business, Kris served as a fledgling copywriter
for a local on-hold script production company, where she won Employee of the
Quarter the last two quarters she worked there.

Kris’s
freelance writing career was launched by actor DeForest Kelley more than forty
years ago. It was Kelley and his wife Carolyn who encouraged Kris to try
Hollywood on for size, which she did from 1989 to 2003. Kris served as Mr.
Kelley’s personal assistant and caregiver during the final months of his life
and presented heartfelt sentiments about her mentor at Paramount Studios'
memorial service for him in 1999. She has written two books about him: DeForest
Kelley: A Harvest of Memories and The Enduring Legacy of DeForest Kelley:
Actor, Healer, Friend. An enhanced version of Harvest with a new title and 50+ pages of riotous additional anecdotes will debut during Star Trek's 50th Anniversary in 2016.

In
Hollywood, Kris served as an administrative assistant and secretarial floater
to writers, producers and—later—information technology professionals at various
studios. Most of her Hollywood career was spent at Warner Bros. Studios in
Burbank where she served as an executive secretary for the VP of Software
Development and as a Hardware Lease Administrator. Kris’s most notable creative
endeavor at Warner Bros. was writing the copy for an intranet website to help
newly-arrived secretaries learn the ins and outs of serving on the WB campus in
record time. The website earned her a monetary reward and the coveted (don’t
laugh!) Carrot Award (Bugs Bunny runs da joint, ya know!); the accompanying Certification
of Appreciation was co-signed by the head of the Human Resources Department and
her boss.

The
author of seven books, Kris’s sixth title, Serval Son: Spots and Stripes Forever
(You are responsible for all you tame)—a cautionary true story about what it’s
like to own, and be owned by, a wild cat for seventeen years—reached the #2 and
#4 spots at Amazon in two niche categories when it debuted in September 2011.

Kris’s
newest title, Settle for Best: Satisfy the Winner You Were Born to Be, is a chapter-by-chapter
breakdown of the twenty commonalities of millionaire philanthropists as
discerned by Napoleon Hill in his seminal 20th century work, Think
and Grow Rich. Each chapter contains words of encouragement and
instructions to entrepreneurs and anyone else who wants to leave a business,
personal, or family legacy that will resonate for generations to come. Settle
for Best stood at #1 in the Motivational Self-Help category at Amazon for three
days when it debuted.